Analysis by Will Bottinick, Research Manager and Chris Boudreaux, SVP of Business Integration.
Congressmen and women follow more than 450,000 people on Twitter – but which publications, politicians, pundits and Beltway personalities does Congress watch the most? This post is the first in a series that will analyze the Twitter habits of Congress. Today, we focus on the media sources that appear to influence Congress via Twitter.
The top media sources Republicans and Democrats in Congress follow on their Twitter accounts mostly align – but the parties differ widely for a few sources, including several mainstream news outlets.
Similarities Between Republicans and Democrats
- Both parties follow C-SPAN more than any other news source.
- 21% of Republicans and 28% of Democrats follow NPR accounts. That seems consistent with the 2011 finding by a team from Duke University this year which concluded that NPR is near the middle of the U.S. political spectrum, after examining the political ideology of 2010 primary candidates.
- Five news organization accounts appear in the Top 10 lists for Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Four of those accounts are from three niche publications, and one from the Washington Post, as follows (ordered by total Congressional followers):
Differences Between Republicans and Democrats
Republicans are more likely to follow news organizations on Twitter than Democrats.
Democrats are more likely than Republicans to follow NPR Politics, The New York Times, CNN Breaking News and NPR News.
Republicans are more likely than Democrats to follow the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Drudge Report and RedState.
Republicans are more likely to follow CNN Breaking News than Democr
ats, but CNN Breaking News is not in the top 10 accounts that Republicans follow.
Two charts below:
Source: Converseon analysis of 428 Congressional Twitter accounts (185 Democrats, 243 Republicans), in May 2011.
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